Justin Trottier - The Fight for Science and Reason on the Campuses

Justin Trottier is Executive Director of the Centre for Inquiry in Ontario, the first venue dedicated to secular humanists and freethinkers in Canada, and helps oversees CFI Communities in Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver. A former freethought campus activist, Justin co-hosts the student oriented Course of Reason podcast and supports over 30 campus groups across Canada. He has had appeared on numerous television networks, including CBC, CTS, OMNI, CH and CityTV, as well as dozens of radio appearances and coverage in campus, city and national newspapers. He is also a regular panelist for the Globe and Mail and the Michael Coren Show and has contributed to Free Inquiry, Skeptical Inquirer and Humanist Perspectives magazines. In this discussion with D.J. Grothe, Justin Trottier talks about how he got involved with science and secularist activism while in college, and why he focuses much of his attention as an organizer now on colleges and universities. He also explains why the Center for Inquiry devotes so many resources to reaching the college students. He details current threats to the university from both the Right and the Left, and what CFI is doing to counter these trends of unreason, sharing ways that listeners can get involved in this effort.